“Majority Leader Cantor campaigned very aggressively against common sense, bipartisan immigration reform but yet in the analysis there are some who suggest that his election was a key to getting immigration reform done,” [White House press secretary Josh] Earnest said. “I am not quite sure how people have reached that conclusion. It is the view of the White House that there is support all across the country for common sense bipartisan immigration reform.”

Like Senate Democrats have, Earnest pointed out that a sponsor and advocate for the Senate bill, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, won his Republican primary on the same night Cantor lost his.

Graham made a “persuasive case why comprehensive immigration reform was the right thing for the country.”

So Grahamnesty, who hails from a deeply red state, won by … shilling outright for legalizing illegals whereas Cantor, whose home state is more moderate, got obliterated for pushing … something more moderate? Hello?

In fairness to Earnest, though, he’s smart to contrast Graham’s win with Cantor’s loss, even if no one takes the White House’s explanation seriously. It does seem odd at first blush that someone universally recognized as a RINO would win easily in a state that’s famously conservative while Cantor, a more reliable righty, would fall apart back home. How do you square that circle? Actually, pretty easily. Re-read this morning’s post about Cantor’s fatal disengagement from his home district, a perception among voters that Brat’s populist campaign fully exploited. Or better yet, don’t re-read it. Read Sean Trende’s elegant piece at RCP making the same point instead. He’s got firsthand experience with Cantor’s aloofness. So do many other voters in VA-7, no doubt.

Compare Richard Lugar and Orrin Hatch. Both came to the Senate in the same year, and both were moderately conservative members of that body, at least by present standards. But in his 2012 re-election race, Hatch fought from day one, corralled key endorsements from Mark Levin, discouraged quality challengers like Rep. Jason Chaffetz, and managed to clear a very conservative convention and win his primary election handily. He didn’t remake himself or his voting record entirely, but he did play like he was 10 points behind.

Lugar, on the other hand, ran a terrible Senate campaign, beset by allegations that he’d failed even to maintain a proper residence in the state. He looked like he’d “gone Washington.” He lost…

I have yet to read anything suggesting that Cantor had a good home style. His staff is consistently described as aloof, and his constituent service is lacking. This is consistent with my experience. Anecdotes are not data, but after passage of the Affordable Care Act, I called his office with a question about what autism therapies for my son would now be covered (I lived in Cantor’s district for six years). I never heard back. This surprised me, as constituent questions rarely go unanswered. I never once saw Cantor, not at county fairs, not at school board meetings, and not in the parades that would sometimes march past our house (we lived on a major thoroughfare). This isn’t to say that Cantor never did these things, only that they weren’t frequent enough to register; he wasn’t the stereotypical Southern politician whose face showed up at every event.

Backing amnesty, even a limited amnesty like DREAM, was damaging but being seen as having “gone Washington” at a populist moment when voters are seething with contempt for D.C. is fatal. What’s interesting about Cantor, though, is that he wasn’t caught napping by his challenger the way Bob Bennett, Lugar, and now Thad Cochran were. All three of those men campaigned lightly early in their primaries because they didn’t take the threat from a primary seriously. It wasn’t just a matter of having a poor “home style”; they were lazy in not moving forcefully to squash their opponent before he built up momentum. Cantor was forceful. He spent millions on ads, attacked Brat as a closet liberal, and even tried to reposition himself as a stalwart opponent of immigration reform to guard his right flank. Didn’t matter. The takeaway is that, at least in a small race like a House district, parachuting into your home district a few months before the election and kitchen-sinking the guy running against you might not be enough. Voters have long memories. Which is another reason to be happy about Brat’s win: Other House Republicans watching this will conclude that they need to spend more of their time back home and less time in Washington.

Cantor’s farewell press conference has just started as I’m writing this. While we wait for news, here’s Rush Limbaugh wondering whether amnesty’s as dead as the conventional wisdom would have you believe. Scott Brown’s big upset was supposed to have killed ObamaCare in the Senate, after all. How’d that work out?

While we wait for news, here’s Rush Limbaugh wondering whether amnesty’s as dead as the conventional wisdom would have you believe. Scott Brown’s big upset was supposed to have killed ObamaCare in the Senate, after all. How’d that work out?

Given the Sarah Palin-ness of Brat, I have a feeling the pro-illegal immigration forces are going to do a lot better in the next 12 months than pro-legal Immigration people believe. It’s not going to be pretty.

Comparing a senator to a representative is a bit silly. I believe the wisdom that that immigration was not as important to the loss as people believe. South Carolina is very conservative and they didn’t seem to care much. They saw the same drudge headlines, listened to the same Laura Ingram show and so forth. Overall the people of South Carolina were more happy with Lindsey than the people of cantor’d district.

While we wait for news, here’s Rush Limbaugh wondering whether amnesty’s as dead as the conventional wisdom would have you believe. Scott Brown’s big upset was supposed to have killed ObamaCare in the Senate, after all. How’d that work out?

I don’t trust the Vichy GOP as far as I can throw Chrispie Chreme … but let’s be straight about what happened with Scott brown’s election: BarkyCare certainly WAS killed int he Senate. That’s why the House had to pass the last Senate bill – which was never intended to be THE BILL – and that’s why they tried to go with DemonPass and all the other shenanigans so that the House didn’t have to put their signatures on that POS Senate bill (even the brain-dead lefties were embarrassed about the Senate bill).

The point, however, was that BarkyCare was supposed to be dead IN CONGRESS after Brown’s election. Pretty much everyone assumed it was. They didn’t count on the third-world Indonesian SackOS just giving America the finger and pushing ahead with it, anyway. It took someone with no American sensibilities and no connection to America to even think to push that POS ahead after Brown’s election … but, that’s the sort of thing that someone who’s not a natural born citizen and with no cultural connection to America would do – as was warned about back in 2008.

Given the Sarah Palin-ness of Brat, I have a feeling the pro-illegal immigration forces are going to do a lot better in the next 12 months than pro-legal Immigration people believe. It’s not going to be pretty.

libfreeordie on June 11, 2014 at 5:38 PM

Brat is the right-wing Piketty except Brat doesn’t fudge his data and doesn’t beat up women.

SC had 6 run against 1. Can’t win much that way. Now, if all 6 would have united around one the picture would have been different. Plus, Miss Lindsey made peace with the conservatives and didn’t go to FL to support the GOPe’s efforts in making anti-TEA party videos, sticking a big finger into the eyes of good people.

The Senate has already passed the fiasco bill. It is known, by smart people, that the slightest passage of anything in the House will bring the two chambers together and then they shove a big turd down the throat of the legal American people, who have to support the others (they already do, but then the others would vote against the hands that feed them).

The danger lies in the House.

The political earthquake of last night was just a small 1.0 on the Richter scale, but it’s sweet to observe the usual rats, from both sides. The latrines are having slush throw against all walls.

Comparing a senator to a representative is a bit silly. I believe the wisdom that that immigration was not as important to the loss as people believe. South Carolina is very conservative and they didn’t seem to care much. They saw the same drudge headlines, listened to the same Laura Ingram show and so forth. Overall the people of South Carolina were more happy with Lindsey than the people of cantor’d district.

coolrepublica on June 11, 2014 at 5:41 PM

Graham simply benefitted from having six separate supposed TEA party candidates to run against. The base couldn’t coalesce around anyone. Cantor only had to contend with Brat. If there had been a single opponent then Graham might have been in trouble. He benefitted from TP disorganization.

It’s bs that Lindsey sold immigration reform. The truth is that the opposition was fragmented and didn’t have the resources to mount an attack on Lindsey, plus Lindsey was attractive to many low information voters for other reasons.

We know that SC Rs do not want amnesty. Neither does the country as a whole, I believe, and the supposed polls showing that are misleading. “Amnesty” vs “some form of immigration reform” are two different things.

Indeed, it’s not about selling amnesty “immigration reform,” it’s about selling the opposition to amnesty! My commment from the earlier thread:

Millions upon millions of Reagan Dems and independents are shocked by “our” country being inundated and soon merged with the Latino countries. We can appeal to these voters, AND WIN.

We either have to get loud about the outrage that is happening to our country, or forget it, we aren’t going to win.

Because we are not going to win in 2016 by making the election about “the economy, stupid.” Nor on Obamacare I’m afraid. Obamacare will help us, but it won’t be enough. We have to get a strong stomach and stop being so timid, and stand up and face down this unparallelled invasion of aliens that will literally destroy our country.

Scott Brown’s big upset was supposed to have killed ObamaCare in the Senate, after all.

.

I keep seeing this argument but the two aren’t synonymous. Brown’s win brought the Democrats to below the 60 vote threshold for cloture. All the Democrats did was use procedural chicanery to get the bill through. Support never changed, just the metrics for passage.

Also? is Rush saying that we have refugee camps in this country? Filled with minors? If so, why on earth is that not on the evening news?

libfreeordie on June 11, 2014 at 5:46 PM

To be serious, this is how it would go. Seeing as the MSM tilts heavily left, it`ll be covered if there are deaths or disease outbreaks. But it won`t be the Obama administration that`s faulted but those darned Republicans who are blocking amnesty reform.

Considering that the current chaos on the border benefits Drug Cartels and prior history of President and Attorney General supplying arms to and laundering money for Drug Cartels, one might wonder if both of them have been bought with blood money.

The Beast, the name of the train that brings the kids from the South of Mexico, based on ads in their papers on what obama said, has kids literally falling off of it, daily, many of them dying, left for the vultures.

Cantor’s farewell press conference has just started as I’m writing this. While we wait for news, here’s Rush Limbaugh wondering whether amnesty’s as dead as the conventional wisdom would have you believe. Scott Brown’s big upset was supposed to have killed ObamaCare in the Senate, after all. How’d that work out?

Not saying Rush is wrong, but this is apples and oranges. Scott Brown’s special election win DID kill Obamacare….in the Senate. The problem is the Dems had already rammed a bill through on a party-line vote back in December 2009 which allowed them one last attempt at passage by forcing enough of their House members(*cough* Stupak *cough*) to take one for the team and vote in favor of the Senate bill.

With amnesty, the only way this happens between now and the next Congress is if Boehner brings the bill to the floor and allows it to pass with a majority of Dems and minority of Republicans. The GOP is in control here(well, one member of the GOP anyway) whereas with Obamacare they were still at the mercy of Obama and Pelosi.

FYI – you’re also an amnesty supporter who has a history of calling amnesty opponents “freaks.”

Also – Cantor lost because of his support for illegal alien amnesty, against voters’ wishes.

bluegill on June 11, 2014 at 5:56 PM

Well my my – always in a good humor aren’t you?

I think Cantor’s loss was partly attributable to his stance on amnesty – but not entirely – he really went missing from his district, and I think that his constituents may have found Mr. Brat an attractive person to vote for.

If anyone had any doubt that amnesty sunk Cantor then this White House statement should put that to rest. Tim Scott voted against the Senate amnesty bill and crushed his primary opponent with 90% of the vote. I’d day that’s more of a mandate than Lindsey’s 56%.

Well.. according to wiki.. there was no other source I could find.. in 2008 Graham had one primary challenger. He won his primary with 67% of the vote.

This primary he had 6 challengers and won with 57%.

That’s a 10 point drop and an increase of 5 challengers.

Yeah.. he can celebrate his victory… but it just might be his last win.

The point is.. it’s not getting any easier for these guys to keep their seats. It’s getting harder. They have to spend more money and the percentage they win with is narrowing. If it keeps up.. eventually they are going to lose.

The White House is just trying to give Republicans good political advice because they want Republicans to be politically successful. They certainly wouldn’t want to steer Republicans into a harmful direction.

If anyone had any doubt that amnesty sunk Cantor then this White House statement should put that to rest. Tim Scott voted against the Senate amnesty bill and crushed his primary opponent with 90% of the vote. I’d day that’s more of a mandate than Lindsey’s 56%.

The point is.. it’s not getting any easier for these guys to keep their seats. It’s getting harder. They have to spend more money and the percentage they win with is narrowing. If it keeps up.. eventually they are going to lose.

Just because a few of their high profile leaders have kept their seats.. they don’t have much to celebrate. Grahmnesty won.. but look at what he spent and look at how many challengers he had and the 10 point drop in his victory margin.

That means things are moving… there is a wave moving in a certain direction.. and that direction is against the establishment. It keeps building and building and shows no sign of waning.

They’re only hope is to pass amnesty and give full voting rights to a bunch of illegal migrants from central America. This is what it’s come to. But will that even work?

Hey, someone finally found a use for Lindsey Graham! The trouble is that “someone” is Barack Obama, and the “use” is as a tool to advance the Democrat agenda. And we’re stuck with this idiot for another six years. Thanks, South Carolina.

One of the things I always liked about Charles Rangel was you knew where he stood on issues and he didn’t hide behind nuance. Graham took a position and articulated it. He didn’t have a lot of nuance and took some heat for it, but at least he was honest about his position. Cantor, on the other hand, would say one thing and then another. You really weren’t sure how he’d vote on the issue or how they would bring up the vote.

This House leadership has pulled some sneaky votes and that also could have had something to do with it. You’d have to think if Boehner pulled the votes on his own, without the support of the other leaders, there would have been hell to pay. So, it’s quite obvious there was agreement in leadership on the votes taken, without majority Republican support.

Anybody who thinks amnesty for illegal immigrants is dead is hopelessly naive. Its proponants will rest and watch and plot, but it will rise again.

And let us hope Dave Brat doesn’t think it will be so simple that he can stride into Congress like a conquering hero and everything will change, somehow.

One does not simply walk into Mordor. Its black gates are guarded by more than just orcs. There is evil there that does not sleep, and the Great Eye is ever watchful. It is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire and ash and dust, the very air you breathe is a poisonous fume. Not with ten thousand men could you do this. It is folly.

It is the view of the White House that there is support all across the country for common sense bipartisan immigration reform.

The problem of course that at the White House, and in the Democrat leadership in Congress, common sense is a very rare bird. Their loose approximation of ‘common sense’ brought us Obamacare. We don’t need an immigration reform disaster to go along with that pile of doggie doo.

More like graham won because his constituents are intensely stupid. Apologies to those constituents of his that voted otherwise, but you guys clearly did not do enough to vacate this fluffy amnesty shill from office.

Yes it is thousands, fool. Don’t you read? Can’t you comprehend english?

Ta111 on June 11, 2014 at 6:22 PM

Libfree can’t comprehend anything but his/her own bellybutton and welfare check. This creature should be one of the many liberal scumbags treated to a first hand view of a Marianas Trench volcanic cone, without so much as a bathing suit for protection.

A spokesman for President Obama rushed to assure House Republicans that Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.) didn’t actually lose because of his gestures toward Democrats on immigration reform.

“Cantor’s problem wasn’t his position on immigration reform, it was his lack of a position,” Obama advisor Dan Pfeiffer tweeted, citing the success of Senator Lindsay Graham (R., S.C.). “Graham wrote and passed a bill and is winning big.”
=======================================================

Oh ya,…on that Position,

sure the h*ll,..wasn’t the Missionary Position, thats
for sure!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The GOP talking point on why House Republicans will not move forward with an immigration overhaul this year has emerged: Republicans don’t trust President Barack Obama to implement a policy rewrite as intended.

The line was first delivered Thursday morning by Speaker John A. Boehner during his weekly press conference with reporters. “The American people, including many of my members, don’t trust that the reform that we’re talking about will be implemented as intended to be,” Boehner said.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor expanded upon that point Thursday afternoon with Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer during their weekly colloquy.

I will say living here in upper SC – Graham did not talk about Immigration Reform in the past couple months.

Not at all.

jake-the-goose on June 11, 2014 at 5:51 PM

The good ol’ Upstate really, really doesn’t like Graham. It would’ve been helpful if Lexington, Kershaw, Florence, and Sumter counties would’ve voted like the Upstate did. Oh, well. It’s unfortunate that the coastal counties were more concerned about deepening Charleston’s shipping lanes. Pandering works, and Graham is the ultimate Pander Bear.

The good ol’ Upstate really, really doesn’t like Graham. It would’ve been helpful if Lexington, Kershaw, Florence, and Sumter counties would’ve voted like the Upstate did. Oh, well. It’s unfortunate that the coastal counties were more concerned about deepening Charleston’s shipping lanes. Pandering works, and Graham is the ultimate Pander Bear.

SouthernGent on June 11, 2014 at 7:56 PM

Here is a fun factoid: Of the six challengers to Lindsey Graham, 6 of them reside in District 6 of South Carolina. District 6 has the only Democrat to the House of Representatives from South Carolina.

Joel_The_Oneth on June 11, 2014 at 6:01 PM

Then why didn’t any of your upstate brethren supply a viable candidate? All of your challengers were from one district.

As a South Carolinian, the reason that Lindsey RINO Graham won is because people are just plain stupid. How can you expect different results when you keep doing the same thing over and over? I wanted him gone, but he has the uneducated voters of SC fooled. We need term limits so friggin bad.